The GCM swimming team in a group photo at the Bintulu Public Swimming Pool last week.

Angelica Rachel Caroll and Nigel Tay.

KUCHING: Young swimmers from Gymkhana Club Miri put up a good show at the Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Dr Wong Soon Kai Inter-Club Swimming Championship at the Bintulu Public Swimming Pool last weekend.

They captured 13 gold, two silver and eight bronze medals to collect 281.5 points and finish at sixth place out of the 13 teams.

Head coach cum team manager David Chung was very happy with the performance of his charges, saying that he was surprised with the good results.

“We sent a very young team and the U13 swimmers bagged most of the medals for us and they were able to pose a strong challenge in the meet against the more established teams representing divisional swimming associations,” he said.

Out of the four teams from Miri, David said GCM were the team with the best results.

Deven Caroll was the team’s star performer with five golds and one bronze while Magdalene Lau bagged three golds, one silver and two bronzes.

Other medal contributors were Wong Kai Jin with three golds, one silver and one bronze; Angelica Carroll with two golds and two bronzes while Nigel Tay won two bronzes.

As the championship was decided on points system, David said GCM managed the sixth placing but on medals system, they captured the second most gold medals in the two-day event.

“It showed that our developing programme is doing very well and I believe this batch of swimmers, with more training and hard work, will grow into calibre swimmers in the next few years,’ added David.

He also felt happy that four of the club’s swimmers were selected during the Northern Zone Suksar Selection in Miri in September to represent Northern Zone (Miri, Bintulu, Limbang) in Sukan Sarawak (SukSar) in Kuching on Dec 14-17.

However, only two swimmers 14-year old Niger Tay and Angelica Rachel Caroll, 13, will be competing in Suksar as the other two could not go due to unforeseen circumstances.

Niger will be down in the Boys 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle, 200m freestyle, 100m butterfly, 200m individual medley, 50m backstroke and 100m backstroke while Angelica will be competing in the Girls 50m, 100m and 200m freestyle, 50m and 100m butterfly, 50m and 100m breaststroke and 200m individual medley.